additional claim to our
respect and gratitude; for in truth we owe to her, not only Evelina,
Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and the Absentee.

ANONYMOUS ON WORDSWORTH

[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1807]

_Poems_, in Two Volumes. By W. WORDSWORTH. London, 1807.

This author is known to belong to a certain brotherhood of poets, who
have haunted for some years about the lakes of Cumberland; and is
generally looked upon, we believe, as the purest model of the
excellences and peculiarities of the school which they have been
labouring to establish. Of the general merits of that school, we have
had occasion to express our opinion pretty fully, in more places than
one, and even to make some allusion to the former publications of the
writer now before us. We are glad, however, to have found an opportunity
of attending somewhat more particularly to his pretentions.

The Lyrical Ballads were unquestionably popular; and, we have no
hesitation in saying, deservedly popular: for in spite of their
occasional vulgarity, affectation, and silliness, they were undoubtedly
characterised by a strong spirit of originality, of pathos, and natural
feeling; and recommended to all good minds by the clear impression which
they bore of the amiable disposition and virtuous principles of the
author. By the help of these qualities, they were enabled, not only to
recommend themselves to the indulgence of many judicious readers, but
even to beget among a pretty numerous class of persons, a sort of
admiration of the very defects by which they were attended. It was on
this account chiefly, that we thought it necessary to set ourselves
against the alarming innovation. Childishness, conceit, and affectation,
are not of themselves very popular or attractive; and though mere
novelty has sometimes been found sufficient to give them a temporary
currency, we should have had no fear of their prevailing to any
dangerous extent, if they had been graced with no more seductive
accompaniments. It was precisely because the perverseness and bad taste
of this new school was combined with a great deal of genius and of
laudable feeling, that we were afraid of their spreading and gaining
ground among us, and that we entered into the discussion with a degree
of zeal and animosity which some might think unreasonable towards
authors, to whom so much merit had been conceded. There were times and
moods, indeed, in which we were led to suspe